point #1

This is exactly what I meant the other day when I wrote about the FAR left and their mean, hateful bullshit.
I just got finished reading the DU thread on the missionaries (two of them a bloggers's parents) killed in Mosul the other day.
Let me sum up 90% of the posts there:
bq. They deserved it for trying to convert the world to their religion. They deserved it because they were stupid to go to Iraq in the first place. The "water purifiers" who were killed were only there acting for Halliburton. Rove sent the missionaries. Bush sent them. They are really there at Bush's request to force the "occupied" land of Iraq to convert to Christianity. They obviously have a mental illness because they are trying to spread their faith. They were Southern Baptist morons and for that reason alone they should be dead. We should send more of them over.
And that was enough to read.
Listen, I am not one for prostelyzing, especially in country that hates other religions. But I don't wish death upon those who do. Not only were the comments about deserving death sickening, but those idiots who gleefully blamed Bush and Rove as if this was some sort of agenda of theirs to convert every Iraqi are incredibly ignorant.
Some of the DU'ers said the victims deserve to die and they were stupid for going to a hostile land where they ran the risk of getting killed.
So, with that line of thinking in mind, it would have been ok for right wingers to exhibit as much glee if anti-war human shields died during an Iraq battle? Or is that somehow not morally equivelant?
It was just about a year ago that the left was screaming about the right's handling of Rachel Corrie's death. Don't speak ill of the dead, etc., etc.
You asked for proof of my accusations the other day. I'll keep posting shit like this every day if you want.
How do you far lefties justify these harsh words? Or will you just pull out your moral equivelance cards and say "you've done it, too?"
Sickening.
Update: Check this out as well. At first I thought that DU thread was some kind of parody or joke, but it seems like the Undergrounders are pretty serious about going on a "dirty trick" campaign.
I wouldn't tolerate crap like that from the far right either, so don't even bother trying to argue that angle with me.

TrackBack

» Pathetic from Nickspace Blog
John Hawkins over at Right Wing News has once again dared to venture into the cesspool known as "Democratic Underground". This thread from back in October lists suggestions for leftists to harass Republicans during the upcoming elections. Leaving aside... [Read More]

Comments

I certainly wouldn't put myself in that country at this time, but hey, that's me. To assume that these people being there was a "vast, right-wing conspiracy" to convert Iraqis to Christianity is as insane as saying these people deserved to die. It is sickening to read this garbage - it is saddening that these people truly believe in their hateful statements.

"They deserved it because they were stupid to go to Iraq in the first place."

So should I take it that the human shields who went to Iraq before the war were stupid? Oh, sorry, I missed it. They were there on principle. It's only missionaries who are stupid. At least Christian ones.

Instead the Left and the DU types see all "value systems" as morally equivalent, arbitrary creations. And therefore, they conclude that who are "we" to impose our arbitrary values on anyone else. And they argue that this type of imposition can only be attempted by powerful, hegemonic "bully" states (like the USA), and the bully states only attempt this on/against the weak underdog states - for whom the Left and the DU tyoes reserve their admiration and sympathies.

This is why the Left and the DU types are "PRO" the enemies of the USA: Because we are strong and our enemies are weak; since they believe all values are either "subjective and/or cultural" they believe that all culture conflicts are MERE power plays, and they always side with the underdog - when Israel was the underdog the left sided with Israel (b4 1967).

This explains why the left argues that "you cannot impose democracy or freedom" because they do not see these values as innately human and the birthright of all humans, but merely as western falsehoods.

This explains why they argue that "Bush is a simpleton who is too stupid to know that there is no such thing as evil, and when Bush says that 'there is evil and it is bad' he proves himself to be a religious fanatic."

And the left's "pomo-moral relativism" is why they favor the "nuanced" hedging of Kerry and the French: Like the convoluted language of the semiotic/Marxist/psychoanalytical obscurantist philosophers they beatify, they love overly complex, abstruse, analogical/metaphorical and "poetic" ambiguities (feeling that life is really too complex for any human to grasp it any other way), and declaim empiricism as stupid.

Moral relativism is the handmaiden of evil because it disarms people of their ability to counter evil; When "do what thou wilt" is the whole of the law, and when people do what is right in their own eyes --- they do evil, and cannot criticize anyone else for doing evil; evil is a subjective/culturally specific term to them.

However, to actually do good deeds, to be just and fair one must actually consider how ones values, and actions effect others, and ask what would the implication of their universalization be, as in: What would happen if EVERYONE felt/behaved in such-and-such a way.

Doing this requires "getting out of one's self" - it requires that we: (1) consider others - our neighbors - to be as important as ourselves, to have the same rights as we have; (2) to love the other as we love ourselves; (3) to NOT do unto others as we would NOT have others do unto us.

Which demonstrates why, if we all bombed innocent third parties to get our way, then the whole human world would vanish.

That is why sane people cannot tolerate terror: terror - and its appeasers breed nihilism.

BUT, the "pomo/moral relativists" have no basis for fighting nihilism. That is why the
"pomo/m.r." left is lost, useless, and annoyingly WRONG.

I've done mission work on several occasions and know many missionaries personally. What motivates these people is love. They want to help, somehow, some way, to make the world a better place. The work is sometimes dangerous, but they understand and accept the risks.

Not all missionaries are involved in evangelistic or church-planting work exclusively. Most are involved in various community development projects...literacy, teaching, public health, you name it. I spent 3 months one summer during college working for the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board as part of a team that was renovating old tenements in the South Bronx. We were turning these derelict buildings into "cooperatives" that the poor people in that area would actually be able to own and manage themselves. In the evenings, we did our work with two Jamaican churches, teaching Vacation Bible School and planning special events.

That's typical of mission work. All missionaries understand that people have physical needs as well as spiritual needs, and both are important.

I guess being a leftie humanitarian, like Rachel Corrie, is okay. But being a religious humanitarian is bad.

It's a damn shame. A damn shame. Fine people died for a just cause, and they are being slandered for it.

Just remember that hate begets hate. Read those comments on Democratic Underground and feel the bile rise in your stomach, that is the hate surfacing. There is enough hate in this world, we don't need more. Don't read them, don't spread their hate.

I wouldn't tolerate crap like that from the far right either, so don't even bother trying to argue that angle with me.

If you're suggesting that you dislike extremism in all its forms and that you would respond to right-wing extremism just as strongly as you'd respond to left-wing extremism, you're either a liar or you have a short memory. A year ago tomorrow you pulled a post that was, apparently, too vitriolic about Rachel Corrie. Then your commenters produced such memorable lines as:

"Rachel Corrie can burn in hell for all I care."

"Ding dong the *itch is dead, The stupid *itch"

"...the gene pool is cleaner."

"This dumb chick is right up there with that moron some years back who lost his legs to a munitions train here. I would say the same thing to both: TOO FUCKING BAD! You play with fire, you get burned. My kids knew that before kindergarten."

And, strangely enough, when I scan forward in your blog from the point of the Rachel Corrie post, I don't find one long post after another condemning the right for being reactionary, callous, and hateful. You posted two comments in response to the more egregious attacks on Corrie, stating that, "I never said she deserved to die, I just said I have no sympathy for her."

Wow. Harsh words for those who were "gleefully" cheering for Corrie's death. I'm sure they're still stinging from that retort.

How do you far lefties justify these harsh words? Or will you just pull out your moral equivelance cards and say "you've done it, too?"

How do I justify those harsh words? I don't. I think those people are semi-literate whackjobs with pudding for brains and little blackened cinders where their hearts should be. Is there "moral equivalence"? Sure; both the left and the right have their semi-literate whackjobs. Said whackjobs, left or right, are an embarrassment. The difference is, you rail against the ones on the left. The ones on the right seem to make up about half of your fan base. The fact that you devote orders of magnitude more time and energy to attacking the lefties than you do to even cursory reprimands against the right-wing version of the same freaks thoroughly undermines any claims on your part to impartiality.

Rachel Corrie = America hater, teacher of hate, guarding a home of a known terrorist. The America hater thing doesn't mean I think she should be dead. But guarding the home of a known terrorist means - in my eyes - that she is a terrorist also.

Your summary of "90% of the posts" is woefully misleading. I see that your gullible followers didn't bother to read the DU thread, and just swallowed the crap you peddle. As Joshua points out you are clearly a hypocrite.

Ryan: Um. Maybe I'm forgetting something I wrote at some point, but I don't recall ever having written either of the things you're accusing me of. I'm not going to say I didn't say it. Since 9/11 I've had days where I was running pretty hot and wrote some stupid shit. But I don't remember ever having written exactly the stupid shit you're saying I wrote. Could you provide a reference please?

A of all, that is a fantastically skewed characterization of Corrie and the missionaries. We could go back and forth about Carrie's character; we can't do the same with the missionaries. Weirdly enough, nobody's gone around digging up dirt about them (yet— I'll allow that it might still happen). Your appalling lack of objectivity tempts me to engage you on this point. I won't, because it's not really relevant, but it's tempting.

B of all, I'm discussing the character of the people cheering for her death and, as much to the point, the morality and appropriateness of cheering for anyone's death.

By your lights, if the actions and attitudes of an unarmed civilian killed in a conflict are egregious enough, you evidently consider cheering for their death unworthy of comment. So it's not that the people cheering for the death of the missionaries are behaving inappropriately; cheering for the death of unarmed civilians is, you clearly imply, essentially acceptable behavior. It only becomes unacceptable when the people cheering are wrong, on points of fact, about the character of the people whose deaths they're cheering for. So when you object to, as you say, "mean, hateful bullshit", it's not the "mean, hateful" part that gets you; just the "bullshit"?

If that's true, then I am forced to retract my assertion that you're a hypocrite. Of course, I'd replace it with an assertion that you're an idiot, but you can pick which one you like better.

Joshua, Rachel Corrie was killed because she stepped in front of a moving bulldozer in an attempt to help terrorists smuggle guns and explosives into Israel.

I'm glad she's dead. My only regret is that there are plenty of people like her left alive.

But wishing for the deaths of Baptist missionaries? I'm an atheist -- and one who vehemently dislikes Christianity, for that matter -- but that's just wrong. They weren't hurting anybody. They weren't, like Corrie, doing all that they could to aid in the mass murder of innocent Israelis.

And here we have a great example of the why the left would seem to be doomed (You know who you are Trolls). When you don't like the facts that are presented to you, change the subject; Never allow for a second that the point that the other side was making has any merit, especially if it does. Point out that those that disagree with you are hypocrites because, well hell there's lots of evil in the world and you didn't bring any of the other evils up!!! And then finally, make personal attacks as to the moral character or intelligence of those you disagree with.

Unless of course your running for political office - then simply point out how bad the other guy is and never take a stand on a position that you can call your own.
Note to Kerry: Bill was likeable; we were far more willing to forgive him being full of shit. Plus he was slick as hell, you sir, are not.

Are there people like that on the Right? Yes, of course, but there numbers would seem to be much smaller. And this is Michelle's blog, there is no requirement that she post anything other than what she feels to be true. It ain't gospel, it is her opinion - and mine.

"Ryan: Um. Maybe I'm forgetting something I wrote at some point, but I don't recall ever having written either of the things you're accusing me of. I'm not going to say I didn't say it. Since 9/11 I've had days where I was running pretty hot and wrote some stupid shit. But I don't remember ever having written exactly the stupid shit you're saying I wrote. Could you provide a reference please?"

You know I was going to get very pissed off here and quote and such but I read alot more of your blog. You haven't had it very easy in life and you deserve a measure of credit.

But sorry man, you lost me when making jokes about 9/11. We'll just have to agree to disagree and disengage here.

They weren't, like Corrie, doing all that they could to aid in the mass murder of innocent Israelis.

Oh for god's sake.
First of all, "doing all she could to aid in the mass murder of innocent Israelis" would have been shooting them, not standing in front of a bulldozer wearing a blaze orange vest and yelling through a bullhorn. Never mind the curious myopia you exhibit with regard to definitions of "murder" and "innocent".

JoJo: It'd be a lot easier to take you seriously if you'd stop talking about yourself in the third person. The whole, "being named after a potato dish" thing makes it hard, but the third person bit makes it impossible.

Defense Guy: When you don't like the facts that are presented to you, change the subject; Never allow for a second that the point that the other side was making has any merit, especially if it does.

Firstly, I didn't change the subject. I responded to a line in Michele's post.

Secondly, I did allow that the point she was making had merit: "I think those people are semi-literate whackjobs with pudding for brains and little blackened cinders where their hearts should be."

Point out that those that disagree with you are hypocrites because

Word of advice: next time, try "claim that" rather than, "point out that". 'Cause otherwise, not to make a personal attack as to your intelligence, but you come off sounding like kind of an idiot.

Well ya got me Joshua, clearly because I made a grammatical error, then I must be an idiot. And by the way, I never named you personaly - mayhap you see some truth in what I say. Not that I care at this point, as you have shown yourself to be quite troll-like indeed.

No, but the JoJo thanks every idiot for playing. Meanwhile, what about the stupid idea that the FAR left celebrates the deaths of fundamentalist missionaries? At least one example would be appropriate.

The JoJo did click on the mysterious "underlined, bolded words". It found no celebration of the killing of missionaries. Got an example? (Please show us what a idiot the JoJo (AKA potato dish) is. He thinks he knows "exactly where he wants to lead this country." He's President Bush and he approves this message.)

There's not necessarily a lot of "celebration," JoJo, but check out a few quotes from the thread:

"At the risk of being flamed
FUCK A BUNCH OF BABTISTS. Especially southern babtists, they're one step away from the taliban muslims. If they had their way, black americans would still be slaves, women and children would be seen not heard, be considered property to do what you would with.They were missionary's, plain and simple, there'll be much wailing and mourning for the fallen brethren doing god's work, fuck a bunch of babtists."

How about this one:

"yes--and my personal opinion is that they are a cult. Having said that, I think people should be very aware that if faith based charities ever goes through, the SBC will be first on the list. The overthrow of the previous SBC by a virtual coup within it's ranks was overseen by none other than Chuck Colsen. Jimmy Carter, wisely resigned from this fascist like sect of the Christian religion, who also have tried to keep women subjugated, barefoot and pregnant. They claim 16 million members. That is quite a number who are intolerant, bigoted Christians and who will, if the bill goes through, be using our money to fund their missionary activities."

...Or this one:

"No wonder Muslims hate us!
These people don't realize the degree that they represent America and Americans...they have led Muslims to believe that most Americans are a bunch of proselytizing, self rightgeous, do-gooders...when in fact, they are the minority...These missionaries owe every Amercian an apology. Especially the soldiers who had to risk their lives in this incident."

One more:

"Fundies killing fundies good riddance
Let's put them all on a big island together and put it on Pay per View. We could use the money to pay off the debt."

If you'll notice, JoJo, quite a few posts have been deleted by the moderators, who at least have some sense of decency. Most likely those were the "they deserved to die" posts.

FUCK A BUNCH OF BABTISTS. Especially southern babtists, they're one step away from the taliban muslims. If they had their way, black americans would still be slaves, women and children would be seen not heard, be considered property to do what you would with.

There is this: "They were missionary's, plain and simple, there'll be much wailing and mourning for the fallen brethren doing god's work, fuck a bunch of babtists."

Which is followed by this: "How about we play the "turn the other cheek" card and send the Iraqis some more?"

And this:"Fundies killing fundies good riddance
Let's put them all on a big island together and put it on Pay per View. We could use the money to pay off the debt."

You know I was going to get very pissed off here and quote and such but I read alot more of your blog. You haven't had it very easy in life and you deserve a measure of credit.

Um. Not to be rude, but I like to think my opinions have some merit beyond a couple of hard luck stories from my childhood.
I think I chased down the quotes you referenced. I'm not sure I'd characterize anything in those posts the way you have. In most cases there are some sentences that look pretty bad by themselves, but if taken in context I still basically stand by them. If anyone wants to read a bunch of inflammatory shit I wrote at the beginning of the war and try to use it against me in this debate, I'll provide the links.

Well ya got me Joshua, clearly because I made a grammatical error, then I must be an idiot. And by the way, I never named you personaly - mayhap you see some truth in what I say. Not that I care at this point, as you have shown yourself to be quite troll-like indeed.

Defense Guy: there was nothing wrong with your grammar. The sentence was grammatically correct (more or less). And I didn't say you were an idiot. I said you sounded like one.

And by the way, I never named you personaly - mayhap you see some truth in what I say.

Leaving off the massive logical fallacy, you did name "the left". I'm part of "the left", so felt inclined to address your statements.

Not that I care at this point, as you have shown yourself to be quite troll-like indeed.

Indeed. Here I am, coming into this big right-wing circle jerk and disagreeing with people left and right. I must just be here for the joy of pissing people off, 'cause god knows there's precious little actual debate taking place here.

Well ya got me Joshua, clearly because I made a grammatical error, then I must be an idiot. And by the way, I never named you personaly - mayhap you see some truth in what I say. Not that I care at this point, as you have shown yourself to be quite troll-like indeed.

Defense Guy: there was nothing wrong with your grammar. The sentence was grammatically correct (more or less). And I didn't say you were an idiot. I said you sounded like one

I disagree with you Michele. I think the DU "Dirty Tricks" campaign has to be one of the funniest threads I've ever read, whether they intended it to be that way or not. It's the most hilarious collection of childish, egotistical, and short-sighted ideas I've read since “101 Things to do with a Dead Cat.” If this is the best that the opposition has to offer, then President Bush already has this election in the bag. Thank you for raising my hopes about the future.

"Um. Not to be rude, but I like to think my opinions have some merit beyond a couple of hard luck stories from my childhood."

I'm sorry if that came off condescending. I didn't intend it that way. What I meant was I was in reaction mode, read a little about you and decided it wasn't worth eviscerating each other over.

"I think I chased down the quotes you referenced. I'm not sure I'd characterize anything in those posts the way you have. In most cases there are some sentences that look pretty bad by themselves, but if taken in context I still basically stand by them. If anyone wants to read a bunch of inflammatory shit I wrote at the beginning of the war and try to use it against me in this debate, I'll provide the links"

Like I said...shit got heated. I had the knives out but took a deep breath and decided we are going to do nothing but call each other names.

The difficulty in having a debate in a non-oral setting is that the tone of an argument is difficult, if not impossible, to decipher. For example, based on your posts, I visualize a smarmy liberal arts MA graduate who feels that they are superior to those misguided souls on the right. This is probably not true, but it's my impression based on your retorts and writing style.

I've seen some good discussions in Michele's comments section when it comes to an issue where Michele takes a "left of center view"; neither side getting "trollish".... Why is that?

Got a link/? "Most likely those were the "they deserved to die" posts."

But you were too slow to capture these horrible comments from the FAR left. So all your vituperation rests on comments that are not availtable. (But should you have seen it, you would have been as outraged as Michele is!!!) Boogie, boogie, boogie, till you just can't stop. We must all be a idiot.

Vituperation? Cool word; had to look it up. Though probably can't use it in common conversation, too many syllables and not used in common conversations to be effective in discussions.

Are you saying that these commentators are lying? It's already been explained why some of the comments on the DU can't be linked. If I didn't know any better, I'd think your the moderator of this thread, using Michele's blog to delete any thread that supports her assertion.

Joshua (the other guy with my first name):
I think you'd call a conversation between Chris Hitchens and Orianna Falaci "a right wing circle jerk"

Correct me if I'm wrong Michele, but I believe that like me, Michele is a liberal hawk.

I'd love to vote for a whole laundry list of lefty social programs and civil right etc., but I also believes that America is threatened and worth defending.

JK's laundry list would have made him the perfect candidate for me, on Sept. 10, 2001.

But since then I have spent many months studying the Middle east and I realize that in the Middle East is a very dangerous reality that my fellow liberals prefer to pretend does not exist... They called for democracy and human rights in the ME in the past, but apparently they didn't actually mean it.

And of course when I talk about this with people like you who would rather not know, I'm always accused of being a right wing trog.

Joshua Sch: I have yet to accuse you of being a right wing anything. And as far as the Middle East, I've been doing some studying of my own. I won't claim to be an expert, and my energies are split between the Middle East and some economics stuff I'm interested in (not to mention my job), but if you're trying to play the "this little liberal stuck his head in the sand, this little liberal went to college," game with me, you're barking up the wrong tree.

As far as "right-wing circle jerk" goes, what I was referring to very specifically was the high proportion of Michele's readers who seem to be, using Michele's nomenclature, FAR right. Every time she posts about the need to back Bush's foreign policy there's a chorus of voices telling her what a genius she is. When someone argues with her these same people jump in (allowed, obviously—I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be) with a lot of very sloppy debating and a lot of vicious bullshit ("Rachel Corrie can burn in hell for all I care"). Some of these people, notably Dave from Texas, are actually capable of much clearer reasoning on the finer points, but they don't start with that. There's a kind of "home court advantage" attitude that seems to suggest that, since they're in a forum that is "theirs" they can just spout off whatever pops into their heads, throw together shabby proofs and dismiss other opinions out of hand.

I think that kind of behavior is self-enforcing. People take sides. Then they take the approval of their compatriots as an indication that they're winning a debate, even when they're really just shouting someone down. Dull group-think. Intellectual masturbation, where new points are hardly ever interjected and old ideas are endlessly regurgitated and reinforced: a great big circle jerk.

Personally, I come to blogs like this to keep myself sharp. Specifically, I come to blogs like this to wear down my own tendencies toward the mindless Bush hatred that can be so easy to get caught up in when you live in a liberal town like Seattle and have a lot of lefty friends. I am not in favor of Bush's foreign policy, and I am strongly against his domestic policy. But I like to think that debating with people like Ryan Rhodes and, I hope, some people here will make me better able to articulate my reasons for that.

Frankly, I can't imagine why someone would read a politics blog where they mostly agree with the author. What the hell is the point of that?

I should add that it looks like a debating society because we're getting near a presidential election, and everyone knows that presidential elections are troll mating season.

USENET was their original habitat, but now that the blogs are encroaching on the chatter forests, they flutter around blogs as well. And the place smells like a southern california beach the morning after the grunion orgy.

The place is littered with the bodies of little troll that didn't make back to the ocean.

Joshua Sch: Right about the time where Michele is asking for a press pass to the GOP convention, I tend to classify this as something other than "Michele's personal blog". This blog gets 35,000 hits a month. It may be Michele's personal blog. But it's also a political forum. And she's said repeatedly that she has an open comments engine because she's into debate-- actually, that's not entirely true. What she's done is post sarcastic comments that say, "Oh, yeah, I have an open comments engine because I can't handle debate." But I choose to put a positive spin on that.

If you think Michele's friends are a bunch of jerks,leave.

Acutually, what I think is that there are a bunch of jerks who read Michele's blog who think they're her friends. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one.